The official source for info about Cx5, Sculpting Tutorial Videos, and other Adam Beane Industries projects.

We wanted to give you all a quick update and let you know that we're thinking of you this holiday season! We know the holidays aren't quite the same without Cx5 to give as gifts this year, but we hope you have some from previous years to melt down and sculpt with indefinitely. ;)

As you know from our June 2017 update, we put manufacturing and R&D on hold because I was dealing with severe health issues. Thank you so much to everyone who wished me well - your kindness and patience were and are immensely appreciated.

Pausing things at ABI temporarily gave me a chance to recuperate, and I’m glad to say that my heart is in much better shape - no more emergency room visits!

Per our last update, we’re still talking with companies that can help us scale up manufacturing of our products, and will give more details on that when we're able to. For now, we wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season!

After a successful Kickstarter campaign for Cx5 Sculptable Filament in August, we at ABI ran into a very difficult fall and winter. As many of you have heard, founder Adam Beane has been experiencing health issues, specifically heart issues, that have required hospitalization and major lifestyle alterations. Instead of using critical time for development and manufacturing of Cx5sf, we were spending time in emergency rooms, while attempting to keep up with standard manufacturing obligations to fulfill worldwide demand for Cx5h and Cx5s.

It turns out that drastically reducing stress in order to maintain heart health does not fit with running a small scale manufacturing operation and simultaneously focusing on new product development. While these medical issues are finally getting under control, some things have needed to shift here at ABI.

Although Kickstarter funded successfully, we now need far more time to complete our obligations to backers. We are delaying the completion of the Cx5sf Kickstarter rewards by a year. They should have been sent out this month, but we are simply not ready.

We are also selling through our existing inventory of sculpting materials starting today, and then we will be pausing sales until further notice.

During this downtime we will be looking for partner opportunities to outsource manufacturing of Cx5, so we can relieve the stresses of small scale manufacturing, preserve Adam’s health, and focus on finishing development of Cx5 Sculptable Filament.

If we can find a suitable larger scale manufacturing solution for Cx5, then we can much more easily fulfill demand without needing to attend to every facet of manufacturing in our facility, leaving us better able to focus on customer relationships and new product development.

Starting today, we are focusing on what the next phase of ABI will look like. We love our products and want to get them back in your hands as soon as possible, and we’ll keep you up to date on our progress towards that goal.

Get Cx5h and Cx5s now, while we're selling through existing inventory

We're excited to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for Cx5 Sculptable Filament launches on Tuesday, August 9th! We've been working very hard on this and are inviting you to spread the word before the campaign goes live. We have some fantastic rewards lined up, and we'll be sharing more about the amazing things Cx5sf can do.

We're excited to have recently released Safe-Smooth solvent on the store! Though we've had it for sale at a few conventions, we haven't had it available online until now.

A better solution

A while back, when we were shooting the first tutorial video, we realized that the solvent we had to explain using was naphtha, which isn't the best thing to have on your skin. As far as art materials go it isn't high on the list of dangerous substances, but it is an organic solvent that should be used sparingly, and we didn't like suggesting that the best way to smooth your sculpture was to use lighter fluid. Also, it left a gummy, permanently changed surface that couldn't be sculpted again.

We wanted to create something better, that was safer for people to use, and more effective on Cx5 and Cx5s.

Safe-Smooth is a non-toxic solvent formulated to be quick acting, leave a clean non-sticky surface on your piece, and be non-irritating to skin. Safe-Smooth works by breaking down the surface layer of Cx5, which allows you to wipe it away and leave behind a smooth, clean finish that is nearly impossible to achieve with other sculpting methods.

Unlike other solvents, Safe-Smooth does not permanently alter the surface of your sculpture. You can go back into a surface smoothed with Safe-Smooth and continue sculpting. This makes solvent sanding a process that you can use at multiple stages of your sculpting, instead of just as a finishing move.

A guide to solvent sanding

Here are the easy steps you can follow to get the best solvent results on your piece.

Spray Safe-Smooth onto a thin strip of a 3M Softback Sanding Sponge - the lightly abrasive sanding sponge will work the Safe-Smooth into the surface layer of your sculpture.

Using Safe-Smooth on your sanding sponge, use circular motions across the surface of your sculpture to create a slurry of Cx5 and solvent.

A few tips

Work in small areas. Don't coat the entire sculpture, just work on one section at a time.

Wipe the solvent off after you've smoothed a small area. Don't let the solvent sit and soak into the surface, this will cause it to become gummy and unworkable. Wipe it off right away, and you can always go back in and continue sculpting on a smoothed area.

Safe-Smooth is meant to remove the surface layer. Use it to create a slurry and then wipe off that slurry to reveal the smoothed Cx5 below.

We're really excited to finally have Cx5 available for sculptors, and we're working to find a way to supply customers who live overseas. Since Safe-Smooth is a solvent it cannot be shipped by air, so currently we can only ship by ground to customers in the contiguous USA, Canada and Mexico. We're working towards getting Safe-Smooth into the hands of customers everywhere, and will keep you all up to date!

We had an amazing time at this year's Monsterpalooza, the first one to be held at the Pasadena Convention Center. There was much more room for exhibitors, attendees, and bizarre creatures. A highlight of this year was getting to announce Cx5 Sculptable Filament, and getting interviewed by Norm Chan from Tested.com about it! Check it out, below.

A new kind of 3D printing

Getting to announce Cx5 Sculptable Filament and introduce it to sculptors has been incredibly exciting. We've gotten to see people's faces light up as they realize just what this can do for them - that they can print their digital sculptures and then refine and detail them right away, as though they had started the sculpture in Cx5 to begin with.

All the hot-sculpting and traditional sculpting techniques that you can use on Cx5 can be used on Cx5 Sculptable Filament, and that means you can skip all the steps of molding and casting a 3D print in order to get a casting you can modify.

We got to talk with incredibly talented digital sculptors, like Daniel De León, whose screen-accurate Jurassic Park sculptures are mind blowing, about their thoughts on the many possibilities for Cx5 Sculptable Filament.

Looking forward

As this year's event came to a close it really felt like the beginning of our next big adventure - into the world of 3D printing. We're gearing up for the Kickstarter campaign that will launch later this May, and hearing more and more excitement from sculptors about what they can imagine doing with Cx5 Sculptable Filament. We're thrilled to be taking this new step, and Monsterpalooza was the best place to step off from!